Vintagemama

au naturel?

I'm looking for a realistic watermelon scent. Anyone have any recommendations?

Looking for 12-24 tart warmers at decent prices for gifts - need source that doesn't require a tax ID number and doesn't have a too cumbersome minimum order. The only place I've found thus far was www.candlesoylutions.com. Anyone know of other sources?

Uh-oh, I misspelled architecture. Sorry.

I've had this problem at times, as well - and I noticed that the circle followed the architechture of the bottom of the tart tins I was using. I surmised that the wax that sat in the fluted parts of the tin would cool more quickly - since more of the tin surface was exposed to the cooler outside air. The middle portion of the mold has less exposure, thus cools more slowly. Rather like a radiator effect, I suppose. If the difference is great enough between the two areas of wax, and the wax is "brittle" enough you can get this crack. I have tried a few things - softer wax mixture, covering the cooling tarts to slow down heat loss and cooling in the oven (after preheating to about 100 or so). They all worked.

I live two blocks away from a store that carries Y*nkee - their Hazelnut Coffee was okay when I went for a sniff of their new lines last week. A bit sweetish for my nose, but I'd have bought it before I started doing my own - I have some Peak's, and it is superb - to me it is much better than the one I sniffed at the craft store. I love the stuff - one of my personal favorites.

Looks like a double wicking to me.

Just went there, and I see that there is a scrolling message that says that it may take two weeks to process orders, and that the dyes are made to order so patience is appreciated.

I received it today - the Paypal payment was done on 2/2/2006. I e-mailed them and asked about it on 2/10 and they replied right away - said it had shipped and would be here Monday, which it was. sales@barnloftcandles.com was the e-mail address I used. I'll be interested to see your results if you e-mail them, as I've been thinking of ordering some of the dyes as well.

I have a mix I stumbled upon that is working great for tarts - 3 oz. paraffin 3 oz. Joy wax 10 oz. container soy wax (I have used several with good results - C1, Ecosoya, C3 - that has some stearic - some generic whatever from Michael's) Consistently creamy looking, easy to color, and no frosting to date. No problems releasing tarts from molds. Do have to usually top them off with a repour, as there's a bit of a sink in the middle - or hit them with the heat gun - and am experimenting with a cooler pour.

I posted this somewhere else too, so forgive the cross-posting, but it is saving me a lot of work and perhaps may help someone else too! Since I make only small quantities, stretchable plastic wrap is my weapon of choice for wrapping tarts and putting a temporary cover on a container candle. I have an old rotary cutter and cutting mat used for quilting. The cutting mat has a surface grid of inch-sized markings and is about 18x24". The rotary cutter looks like a pizza cutter (only sharper). So - I unrolled a length of the wrap, rolled the cutter along the guidelines for the size I needed, and had easy-to-manage squares of plastic wrap in seconds. Perfect to slap a tart face-down on, pull up the corners, and label - quick and easy. This would work for tissue paper, fabric, or any other kind of wrap, of course - and one could draw a grid on a big flexible cutting board or something similar (the mats are not cheap, but I had an old one lying around).

Oh, I hope mine comes soon!! Sounds wonderful! Will be closely watching the wicking results too... I do almost exclusively 4 oz jj's and wide mouth half pints -

Can't wait to try adding the BW to see if it helps. I truly love this wax but the lack of throw is such an issue. Can you share how much BW you found effective?

I am curious about this line of scents and wonder if anyone has tried them. The prices are significantly above their "standard" line. They have a strawberry preserve and a lilac in particular I'm looking at - but BCN's Strawberry Jam is SO good that I don't know if it would be worthwhile to try this. Tried a post to the fragrances board but no answers yet :-).

Curious about their Lilac, Strawberry Preserve, Blueberry preserves, Rain - oh, heck, they all look great. Are these significantly stronger, truer, ?? I cannot imagine a strawberry scent better than BCN's Strawberry Jam, but if there is one, I'd LOVE to try it.

For those like me who are clear-plastic-wrap-impaired - always get the stuff sticking to itself and it's a mess ;-) - Here's something that works very well for me. I do some quilting (don't anyone get all impressed, all my quilting is by machine ). I have a rotary cutter and a big rotary mat. For anyone who doesn't know - a rotary cutter looks very much like a pizza cutter, and is available wherever sewing or scrapbooking supplies are sold. The mat is made of really tough, self-healing material, and is marked with gridlines for measuring. Mine is something like 17x24. So - roll out enough wrap to cover the board, more or less lined up with the grid lines . Use the rotary cutter (GREAT use for blades too dull for fabrics!) across your chosen grid lines, cutting it into squares of whatever size you need to wrap your tarts. I do this without a straightedge as I don't have a need to be exact, but you can try a straightedge if you do have a thing about straight cuts :smiley2:. Center your tart(s) in each square and wrap 'er up, slap on a label if you need to, and there you are. Wish I'd thought of this a LONG time ago <sigh>... Nancy in WI

WOW. Made me . We LOVE strawberries, and this is how my kitchen smells when I'm making strawberry shortcake. Not the sponge cake cup things from the grocery store, either - I'm talking rich, sweet, biscuit dough cut with Grandma's special fluted tin cutter, sliced and layered four slices high with hand-whipped, heavy cream. One good sniff of this and I had to wipe the whipped cream off my nose. I love it. Poured several small candles and a few tarts this morning and can't wait to see if they throw hot. I used CB 135 wax - it took color beautifully so is a true strawberry color :-) - and just a touch over an ounce of the Strawberry Jam FO. Two thumbs up pending some burning in a week if I can wait that long!

Oh, man, if I order $50 worth of RA products (their minimum, eh?), I'll be a divorced woman ! I've several to look for now and it may be time for me to do an ISO on the classifieds board... will definitely be following up when I get my hands on some of these.

I'm sitting here burning an orange votive - the last one of 24 I purchased as a gift for someone. The fragrance is lovely - the maker calls it "Orange Apeel". In front of me are three of my candles - two made with "Fresh Squeezed Orange" scent and one with "Orange Vanilla". They are headed for the "Reincarnation Station", where they shall be reborn as tarts. Both have a BEAUTIFUL cold throw. Literally every person whom I've shown them to has loved these scents. The tarts I've made with these scents have been superb. Add a flame, though, and it's a different story. My husband says it smells like kerosene - I thought turpentine - no matter, it's not something I want to burn in my home and certainly wouldn't inflict them on anyone else. This little votive tells me that somewhere there is an orange that works, and I could swear that I saw a web site somewhere with a reformulated Orange scent that was supposed to eliminate the fuel stench, but I cannot find it again. Is there hope of finding a true orange that doesn't do this? (BTW, I tried an Orange Chiffon Cake and can't stand the sweetness of it, so that won't do it for me!)

And though I'd like to think that, being armed with a knife, and sources of heat, and a "mom voice" cultivated to an art form by virtue of my three grown kids - that I could subdue it. But truthrully, I cannot find a great way to cut, melt or otherwise remove from this block the small amounts that I need to add to my flakified soy. There must be a trick someone could share? Anybody? Before I hurt myself?

I'm baffled and need advice. Yesterday I took a pound of EZSoy (weighed), heated it to 175 in the microwave, added a liquid dye with a little bit of shavings from two different dye chips to obtain a nice chocolatey color, stirred well, added .6 oz. each of peppermint and Hershey's Kiss FO's. I cooled to 100 degrees f and poured into a couple of average containers (8 oz and 4 oz jelly jars). As it was cooling, the tops started to look very much like little bubbles were snaking their way to the top. It looked like overcooked fudge. When it was completely cooled, it looked like a bunch of tightly-packed, tiny whitish mushrooms. Hitting it with the heat gun did nothing to improve the situation. I remelted and added a tablespoon of hydrogenated vegetable shortening (yes, Crisco). Figured that's what I'd do for almond bark that was acting like this! Also, figured I had nothing to lose, as this wasn't going anywhere but home, and it smelled too great to just toss it. That somewhat improved the finish - the tarts I poured looked okay - but the candles - yuck. So... I tried another batch of EZSoy with a different FO and it did the same thing! Not quite as badly, but the tops were definitely not pretty. Tonight I tried again. I was extremely careful with temperatures and used a double boiler rather than the microwave, checked with two thermometers, and made sure I never went over 170. The candles looked okay, but to get rid of a little rim of wax due to sloppy pouring :-) I hit them with the heat gun again. Bad move - the wax that melted looks pitted, and like it has little bubbles again, and is frosty and - well, it seems that every problem I've read about is showing up in this one poor batch of wax! What am I doing wrong? Is EZSoy quite temperamental? I am quite new to this and don't have much experience to judge from, but other 100% soy flakes I've used didn't do this. The wax is fresh - well, freshly purchased anyway, from BC North. Thanks for any help!

I am searching for a FO with A*on's Imari scent. Anyone know where I might locate something like that? Thanks!

Is there a resource that someone can point me toward that defines how a candle of xx type (pillar, container, votive, etc.) should burn to be considered good/successful/safe? Forgive me if this has been answered before - I've used every search phrase I could come up with but haven't hit it yet. Can't believe how much I don't know after 35+ years of being a candle "consumer". But that's for another thread ! Thank you all so very much!

I'm quite new at this, so have been lurking and learning. My first soy wax adventure was a pound of the local craft store's flake microwaveable container wax bought on a lark. The first thing I noticed was that it had an odor which, while not really unpleasant, wasn't exactly appealing, either. Not having been exposed to soy wax previously, I thought that was perhaps normal. I've since purchased some other soy wax - same basic type - and cannot detect that odor, so I have to assume that the first batch I bought had some sort of problem. I'm curious - anyone else ever run into this, and does anyone know what would cause it? TIA!